I would bet it would have to be before May CPX 2016. Last year at CPX it was all about the new Mgmt R80 and it was coming this year. It just does not look so good to come to the next CPX a year later and it still is not out.

Welcome to the club! Check Point software can be deployed in many ways depending on your requirements. With this initial release of R80, it can only be installed and used for what we call the security management server(or multi-domain mgmt server...another topic for another day).

In your particular case, is the 4600 the only device you own? If so, you would have to install R80 onto a VM(VMware or Hyper-V...KVM also works but not officially supported yet) or supported open server. You would then establish communications with the 4600 and manage it via the management server.

Hope this helps a bit. I can send more detailed info privately if you wish. And feel free to ask additional questions here as well.

thank you it is a whole new world. i have only a 4600 and i would much prefer to run management from a vm to take load off of the gateway. does licensing allow that? perhaps i should start a new thread for checkpoint newcomers.

No, the base 4600 licensing does not allow for a separate mgmt server(please send me your UC offline and I can double-check to make sure you don't already own a license). However, you can self-create 30-day evaluation licenses of our entire product stack without needing to contact CP. So if you wanted to test this out in a lab first you could do so very easily. We also support running gateways in VMs so you could mimic managing your 4600 as well.